The Home Inspection and why every 

home seller is panic stricken.

When selling your home, the wait and anticipation of a home inspection is no simple walk in the park. In the Indianapolis real estate market, it's traditional that a buyers home inspection will be performed and responded to in writing within fourteen days from the acceptance of a purchase contract.

As humans, we don't like to wait. We live in an instant gratification world. It's no wonder that while waiting (in what seems like silence) is agonizing for any home seller. When you sell your home with The Castetter Group, our technology and operational procedures allow us to move swiftly once a property goes under contract! 
However, there is a tidal wave communications that a home buyer must jump through during this time. 

i.e. transfer and wire earnest money; finalize additional contract documents, call the bank, email the processor, text the insurance company, schedule the home inspector, keep up with work and family, take calls from their agent, their relocation company and so on. The point I'm trying to make is this, relax. There are dozens of procedures and safeguards that are happening behind the scenes with your realtor and the buyers real estate agent. 

Here are some things you can do while you wait a few days. Wipe clean the return air vents, vacuum around the furnace unit & change the furnace filter. This shows the home inspector that you keep up on maintenance items and that you are prepared for the inspection. Also, clear the driveway and walkway if there is snow on the ground. Make certain that there is a clear path for the inspector to get to the crawl space, electric panel and all attic access points. (You don't want a stranger moving your personal items to gain access). 
If you are on a well, discuss with your realtor whether you should chlorinate the well at this time or not.   

After the inspection, double check that the electric panel has not been tripped and make certain that all appliances are running, GFI outlets are set and so on. Inspectors always check and double check these things, but occasionally we experience human error and we want to avoid any disaster.

Generally, the buyers and their agent are present & your property does not need to be in perfect show condition for this appointment. 

In closing, know this. Home Inspectors are paid to help ensure that there are not any unknown safety or habitability defects. There will most likely always be some items that will need to be addressed and/or negotiated. Odds have always been that 99% of the time, we work together through this with intention and expert negotiation. 

If you have comments or questions about inspections, buying, or selling with Chris Castetter, please call or text (317) 414-1117  

Visit us on the web at https://www.talktotucker.com/chris.castetter

Home Staging and Preparing Your Home For a Successful Sale

Curb Appeal

Today’s buyers are “instant gratification oriented.” The majority are shopping for square footage, convenience, and a home that is “move-in ready.”  Before you begin the process of marketing your home for sale, take the time to do an outdoor assessment and compare your curb appeal to other active listings on the market in your price range.

It will be worth your time and return on investment to trim the shrubs, remove any dead trees, bring in plenty of fresh mulch, potted flowers, a wreath on the door and a welcome mat! Does the paint need touched up outside? Is there any rotted wood that should be replaced? Are the windows and screens cleaned? Does your lawn show a buyer a “pride of ownership?”

The Front Door

My professional Home Stager calls the point of entry, “The Three Second Sale.” Believe it or not, a buyer often knows the minute they walk in a home if it is the right home for them.

So ask yourself, when entering the home, is it airy? Is there a pleasant odor? Is the entry crowded with furniture and coats, or busy with dated wall paper? These are some of the details I will guide you through during this process.

Home Staging

It is my professional opinion that even the finest of homes can benefit from some level of staging and de-personalizing. “The way we live in our home and the way we sell our home are two very different things.” As a seller, one of your best selling features is your square footage, so show it off and pre-pack the unnecessary items. (Pre-packing now will make your move a lot smoother in the long run as well as promote a faster sale).

A neutral color pallet on walls and floors is very important to todays consumer. Furniture placement, art and accessory placement are equally important believe it or not. We’re not just selling a house, we are selling a lifestyle.

 

Does the physical condition of your home communicate a calm and welcoming environment or does it communicate a tired feel and a need for cleaning and updating?

Less is always more

If you are in the beginning stages thinking about selling your home, I will be happy to meet with you in person at your home to go through a room by room assessment. "Preparing today will ensure for a successful sale later." www.castettergroup.com 

The Secret to A Successful Home Sale

This post is a guest blog from a recent client who sold her Avon home with The Castetter Group.


We recently put our house on the market and I was terrified. Terrified because I have two young children (ages 4 and less than a year) and keeping the house "show ready" with the littles running around wasn't going to be fun. Also, we had the smallest house in the neighborhood, so it was going to be a challenge finding the right buyer.

I knew logically I had no reason to be so scared. It's a sellers market right now. Inventory is low, so our chances for a home sale were high!

We sold our home after just 7 showings spaced over two weekends.

Several months before we put our house on the market, we invited Chris Castetter over to discuss ways to make our home ready for sale. We wrote down his suggestions and got to work.

Believe me, we didn't love spending money on a home we were trying to get rid of, if you will. We got new carpet and updated all of our kitchen appliances. New refrigerator, new stove, new washing machine and new vent hood. We took down all of our family photos nailed to the walls, fixed the holes and repainted several spaces. We also had some light fixtures to change out.

It wasn't cheap, but we sold our home quickly and we got a good return on our investment! We were very pleased with the offer we received.

The secret to a successful home sale is listen to your realtor. Most people want a "move in ready home" that isn't going to require any additional maintenance once they take possession. Sure, it was work, but now we aren't going to have to worry about being saddled with two mortgages.

We are so pleased with the work The Castetter Team did to help us sell our home quickly! We highly recommend them if you are looking to buy or sell!

Qualifying For A Mortgage When You're Self-Employed

Since the economy has started improving, a large segment of the population are earning income through self-employment, freelance or contract work. Business owners, self-employed taxpayers qualify for a whole host of tax breaks that reduce their bottom line and consequently, their provable income. 

Since the mortgage industry bases credit-worthiness on provable income, using W-2 forms and tax returns, qualifying for a conventional loan may prove difficult for many self-employed would-be homeowners.

Conventional lenders

Since conventional lenders follow prescribed formulas in proving income and credit-worthiness, most mortgage underwriters only look at the after-tax and post-deduction income, resulting in a far lower provable income than most entrepreneurs or self-employed workers believe expresses the reality of their situation. In a few cases, certain lenders allow specific deductions to be added back into your income including some one-time investment expenses, depletion or deductions for business use of your home. But for the most part, qualifying for a conventional loan is much more difficult for the self-employed buyer with an irregular income.

Alternative lenders

While a conventional loan (salable to government-controlled agencies such as FannieMae and FreddieMac) may not be an option for you, some investors see an opportunity and are funding smaller lenders that offer loans outside these restrictions. For these loans, the risk is higher, so to hedge their investment, these loans typically have a higher interest rate and require a down-payment of at least 20 percent and sometimes more, or a large portfolio, or really great credit.

The bottom line

If you’re newer at the self-employed lifestyle but know you want to buy a home in the near future, you’ll need to start now to position yourself to qualify. Here are the best practices to incorporate into your business and personal life to set yourself up to be approved:

• Be organized: Keeping organized and accurate business and financial records supports your income claims. Most lenders will request a couple years (or more) of tax returns to prove your average monthly income. If your first year was low (this is true for most), give yourself three years or more to back up your income claims. Lenders take the net income from two years and divide it by 24 to get an average, so if in your first year you had only two or three sporadic clients and now you have 10 or 12 regular clients, that additional year will allow you to increase the verifiable income your lender uses.
• Keep track of your earnings: Use an accounting system that can give you earnings or revenue statements, expense reports, profit and loss statements and a balance sheet. If you’re looking for simple workable accounting systems, a couple to check out include QuickBooks online and Freshbooks. Either of these systems is created for the non-accountant give you access to a variety reports, support and useful information.
• Work to improve your credit score: Your credit score may seem out of your control—after all, some companies only report your bad habits and not your good ones—but there are some areas you can take charge of. Your payment history makes up more than a third of your score. Position yourself to make payments early and on time. Another thirty percent of your score is based on the amount you owe compared to the amount of credit you already have, and other loans such as school and vehicle loans. That means if you have a credit card with $5,000 available and only owe $250 on it, you’re at just 5% of your available credit and you’ll receive more points in this area, but if you have a credit card with $500 on it and you owe $250, you’re at 50% of your available credit, so expect that scenario to negatively impact your score. In other words, pay off what you already owe. The rest of your score is a mixture of the length of your credit history, new credit accounts and the mixture of types of accounts you have. Contrary to some popular practices, closing your oldest accounts when you open new ones is a bad idea. The older accounts that are in good standing offer you more points than a newer account.
• Report your payments: If you don’t currently use credit (i.e. have no loans or credit cards), but you consistently pay your bills like rent, electricity, insurance or subscriptions, consider utilizing one of the alternative reporting services to prove you make your payments on time and consistently.

Don’t wait until you want to buy a house to start getting your financial house in order. If may take several months to up to two years to create a provable paper trail for yourself.

Home Prices Continue To Climb: Up 4.9% On Average in 2015

Chris Castetter, (F.C. Tucker) reported September 2015 home sales were down 6.8 percent for the nine-county central Indiana region compared to September 2014, but up 7.9 percent year to date. Fewer homes were on the market last month compared to September 2014, showing a continuing trend toward a more balanced market. Average year-to-date home sale prices, meanwhile, climbed 4.9 percent to $185,536.

All nine central Indiana counties experienced varying declines in inventory. Morgan County experienced the biggest drop at 18.4 percent, or 101 fewer active listings when compared to September 2014. Shelby County reported the smallest change, with 1.6 percent fewer listings in September 2015 compared to the same time last year. On average, inventory in the nine-county area declined 9.2 percent compared to September 2014.

Tucker’s data indicates eight counties experienced slightly higher home sale prices than in September 2014. Year to date, Madison County led the way with an 11.7 percent uptick in prices. Hancock County’s average sale price increased 8.8 percent to $168,788, while Hendricks and Marion counties also saw gains above 7 percent. Boone County had the second highest average sale price of all nine counties at $271,190, and was the only county to experience a decrease of 3.6 percent in September 2015.

“Residential real estate sales and listings are still very active,” said Jim Litten, president of F.C. Tucker Company. “The region is 7.9 percent ahead of last year’s pended sales at this time, and that’s a sure sign we’ve ended the third quarter on a strong note. And, as average sale prices continue to rise, the incentive to list a home is still high.”

In September 2015, 2,276 homes pended, down from 2,442 in September 2014. Boone and Hamilton counties experienced the largest drop in pended home sales at 31.7 percent and 24.7 percent, respectively. Morgan County experienced the largest gain in pended home sales at 36.2 percent.

Of the pended home sales in the region last month, two were priced at $2,000,000 or higher; six were priced $1,000,000 to $1,999,999; 50 were priced $500,000 to $999,999; 224 were priced $300,000 to $499,999; 343 were priced $200,000 to $299,999; 1,020 were priced $100,000 to $199,999 and 631 were priced at $99,999 or less.

Pended Single-family and Condominium Home Sales

With approximately $3.4 billion in annual sales, F.C. Tucker Company is Indiana’s largest independently owned comprehensive real estate firm with more than 40 offices and more than 1,500 sales associates throughout Indiana and select markets in Kentucky. Less than one percent of all real estate firms have the longevity of F.C. Tucker. Founded in 1918, the company’s family of businesses includes a full range of real estate services—mortgages, title insurance, relocation services, a full line of insurance products, auctioning and homeowner warranty products. F.C. Tucker has earned a reputation for its exceptional service, experienced sales associates and “Golden Rule” commitment to its clients and employees.

5 things that appear to be small, but are in fact significant

Not all lenders have the same rules and systems and programs. I want to point out 5 things Caliber Home Loans that might be different than many other lenders. These 5 things might appear to be small, but they really can be significant.

1.       APPRAISERS-  It seems like every week this year I am hearing about a low appraisal coming from another lender.  I have hand selected my branches appraisers which I have all know for over 15 years.  They are very experienced appraisers that I trust.  Many companies have appraisal management companies which means you have no idea what appraiser will get the order and many times the appraiser will be out of time and not really care what value they bring in the appraisal.  I have had several deals this year where we have been successful getting a client to switch to me after another lender brought in the deal low and every time so far my appraisers have come up at purchase price or higher.  I have heard about several other deals that we could not talk the client to switching lenders and most of those did not have good ending results and many cases the transaction diedL

2.       USDA- It has been announced recently USDA ran out of money.  This happens most years.  Many lenders will choose to stop doing these transactions when this happens and wait until they have available money again.  Caliber will still proceed and fund these loans and we will get reimbursed later once funds are available again through USDA.  

3.       No Monthly Mortgage Insurance- Caliber will allow high credit score borrower have no monthly mortgage insurance for a very minimal fee and in some cases will cover the entire costs.  Borrowers putting 5-15% down on a conventional loan can save several thousands of dollars by taking advantage of this program. 

4.       Direct seller to all the agencies-  Caliber services it’s loans and we are a direct seller to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (conventional loans), and Ginnie Mae (FHA and VA loans).  Basically what this means we don’t have all the overlays most other lenders have.  This can cause us also to do many loans other companies can’t and cause less paper work for clients.  For example, many lenders ask for two year tax returns on all borrowers and at least all self-employed borrowers.  Caliber will only ask for most current year of tax returns from a self-employed borrower.  If 2013 returns show a lower income and 2014 returns are higher we can just use 2014 instead of doing a 2 year average.  There are countless examples I could give, but another significant example is we do not require asset reserves.  Many lenders will require reserves especially if the client is not selling their current residents before buying their new home. 

5.        1% assessed value on real estate taxes even if property lost exemptions- if property lost exemptions real estate taxes are usually double.  This could cause buyers to stray away from a property and maybe not even qualify.  Caliber will only collect 1% of the assessed value and start escrowing this amount right away.  This will allow the borrowers payment to be significantly lower payment #1 and many times allow the client to qualify.

(Special Thanks goes to Mark Davis, Caliber Home Loans). 

Mark Davis

Branch Manager – Mortgage Consultant

Caliber Home Loans

10080 E. US HWY 36

Avon, IN 46123

NMLS ID 525365

(317) 550-2105  (Office)

(317) 590-8665 (Cell)

(855) 880-7227 (EFax)

Mark.davis@caliberhomeloans.com

Station Hill in Avon, Indiana - Home For Sale

Who do you know looking for a custom built brick home in Avon with a Main Level master suite?(Completely updated)!

This nearly one acre, private, wooded lot located in Station Hill is sure to impress! Currently priced in the $260's. Four bedrooms, main level home office/ den PLUS A bonus room. 

This Avon charmer is move in ready & shows like a model. Contact Top Real Estate Agent, Chris Castetter for a private tour today! (317) 414-1117 (Call or Text).  #castettergroup

Main level features newer, wood laminate flooring, fresh paint, great room with cathedral ceiling, stack stone fireplace. Master bathroom boasts elegant walk-in shower , ceramic tile floor, glass block window, dual sinks and more.  Click below to see this one online now.

http://www.talktotucker.com/idx/5608-station-hill-dr-avon-in-46123/10703547_spid/